


Gentlest Sin

by HippolytaGale



Category: RWBY
Genre: Childhood Friends, F/M, First Time, POV Second Person, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 16:25:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4186713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HippolytaGale/pseuds/HippolytaGale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nora was confused about the changes, but unlike you, she told you all about it whether you wanted to hear it or not. She couldn’t help it; boys at school started saying strange things to her, and neither of you knew what they were talking about. Her parents were like yours; they didn’t tell her anything, even when she had questions, or they got mad and asked her where she had heard those words. Nora kept asking you, but you didn’t have any real answers either, the books on your shelf silent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gentlest Sin

You always slept together. When you were little and the teachers wouldn’t let you nap with each other in preschool, it was the only thing that would make you cry for a solid ten minutes. You couldn’t understand, and they had to explain in their soft, slow tones that what was okay at home wasn’t always okay at school. It was the same with kissing.

“Ren, kissing is for family, not for friends.” They said.

That never made sense to you. Nora felt like family—you played together, ate together, were together more than Nora was with her own siblings—but just because you didn’t have the same parents, the two of you weren’t family. The teachers let you stay with each other all day, except for the hour you had to sleep, and you didn’t understand. At home, things were different. The two of you slept in a tangle, her knee between your scrawny legs, her hand lodged in your hair, her cheek on your shoulder; she got cold easily, and she needed you to hold her close.

“We’re like puppies!” She grinned, and snuggled against your chest. 

You kissed each other sometimes too, little pecks to cheeks and noses and lips, but that stopped once you were old enough to walk to school together. You weren’t the one who stopped it; Nora touched your nose with a finger and said “Boop,” and that took its place. At the time you didn’t mind—you wouldn’t realize how much you’d think about them later, when you were older and less innocent with your thoughts. It was just as well. As you got older your parents thought the kisses were less cute and more unsettling somehow, so they were glad when you stopped.

“Ren! Ren, look at this one!”

Nora stuck her finger into the bright fronds of a sea anemone at the bottom of the tide pool. It attached to her right away, and she kept adding fingers until all the creature’s tentacles were suckled to their tips. She bit her lip in delight.

“This is so weird. Here, give it a try.”

“Your dad said you need to leave the animals alone. They get hurt when people touch them too much.”

“Oh, don’t be a sourpuss!” She said, but let go. She stood up, and grinned down at you before she wrapped both arms around your waist and lifted you into the air. You wondered when you’d hit your growth spurt and finally be taller than her.

Nora outperformed your body in every area since kindergarten. When she ran she ran like a gale, and threw harder than most of the boys in your class. That made things difficult for you (the boys jeered at your slight frame) but you were proud of her anyway. She was strong, and fast, and you knew she wouldn’t hesitate to smash those boys’ faces if they ever hurt you, and that thought alone made you want to get stronger so you could protect her too.

 

 

You felt a great need to protect her once your bodies started changing. Around eleven or twelve you both began to need showers after running around outside, and one day without thinking Nora yanked off her shirt on her way to the bathroom and you caught a glimpse of her bare breasts, lemon-sized but there as surely as the fine hair starting to grow on your body. It made a wave of dull heat flush to your face, and you felt lucky she couldn’t see it.

She did see embarrassing things as you slept though. Although both of your parents didn’t know she slipped out of her house to sleep in your bed every night, you didn’t feel safe with her eyes on you. It was like your body didn’t belong to you anymore—it did these… _things_ …without any regard to what you wanted. One night, after Nora opened your window and leapt into the sheets, she shook you out of your drowsiness and asked, to your horror, about the hardness of your privates.

“Why does it do that?” She asked, and flicked it with a finger. 

“I don’t know, Nora. It’s only started happening recently.”

You winced and pulled away, curling into a ball. You felt like crawling into a hole and dying, but at least she didn’t know about how you woke up with wet underwear some mornings, a mineral smell thick in your nose. You thought about asking your father about it, but the severity of his gaze made you turn to books instead. The language was too formal, too scientific even for you, but you understood that it was normal and something that happened to all boys. One night, before Nora came over, you shifted against your mattress and felt a throb of pleasure there, and it made you curious. That was the first time you touched yourself. Afterwards, when you changed and the two of you slept close like quotation marks, you touched her hair in the dark and felt it again. You understood a little better now; sometimes it just happened, and sometimes it happened for her. 

Nora was confused about the changes, but unlike you, she told you all about it whether you wanted to hear it or not. She couldn’t help it; boys at school started saying strange things to her, and neither of you knew what they were talking about. What was coming, and why would they want to do it in her mouth? Why did they sneer at her backside and say “The bigger the cushion, the better the pushin’?” Her parents were like yours; they didn’t tell her anything, even when she had questions, or they got mad and asked her where she had heard those words. Nora kept asking you, but you didn’t have any real answers either, the books on your shelf silent. 

 

 

She changed, just as you did—as you laid down in bed some nights, she pressed a hand to your chest and drew a wet circle around your nipple, staring at the way it would harden. Before you fell asleep, she took both of your hands and hooked them into her hair, sighing with pleasure as you tugged like she asked. She squirmed against you, her cheek to your cheek, setting your knee between her thighs where the skin was warm and shifting against it, her clothes oddly feeling in the way. 

“Ren,” She whined one night. “I can’t sleep.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know!” She tossed to the side of the mattress, her face in her hands. “I’m not tired, and I don’t know if what I’m doing is making me better or worse.”

You felt weird too. You were hard again, especially after Nora stripped down to her underwear to escape how hot her skin felt. She noticed your erection, even gave it a little boop with her finger, and after you gasped through your teeth at her touch both of you felt a change creep into the space between your bodies. 

“Are you okay?” She asked. “Are you having trouble too?”

“It’s…I feel the way you feel. Can’t sleep.”

“Does…does touching this help?” She asked curiously, and touched your tip again. It stiffened and you groaned. 

“Nora,” You gasped. “Nora, I don’t think you’re supposed to touch me there.”

“Aw, but it helps.” She pouted. She cupped her hand and fitted it over the underside of your shaft, and you wished there was no cotton between her skin and yours. “It’ll be fine,” She insisted. “You’ll see.”

Touching yourself was nothing like this. This felt better, and though Nora was surprised by the dark patch that spread across your underwear after a few minutes she was intrigued by how relaxed you seemed afterwards. 

“Do it to me!” She said, excited. “Do me next!”

“I…I don’t know how.”

“Well, neither do I, but I bet if you just do what I did it’ll work just fine. Come on, get started!”

Since she didn’t have boy parts, you thought if you flattened your hand it might still work, but after a minute or two Nora frowned and pushed you away. She placed her feet flat on the mattress, lifted her hips, and shrugged her underwear off.

“Nora, you’re definitely not supposed to be naked in my bed!” You hissed. Thank god you locked the door.

“What, are you the rules police now? Are you going to report me to the rules…the rules people?” She threw her underwear to the floor. A strange musk filled your nose. She took your hand and placed it back between her legs.

“Press harder,” She ordered.

As you ground your palm against her it occurred to you that maybe the process wasn’t so different for Nora either. Although she didn’t have a penis like you did, the rubbing helped. She even felt wet like you did after she touched you, though you felt her wetness the entire time. Girls must be different than boys that way, you thought. 

“Oooh,” She whimpered after you brushed a spot just right. “There. Right there. That felt nice.”

You liked this, you decided. It was probably not something you were supposed to be doing together, but if it was really that bad your parents would’ve said something, wouldn’t they? Watching how much Nora liked what you did, you couldn’t imagine it was wrong. You liked doing this with her. It felt like you should. She squirmed under your hand.

“Ren, I feel weird. Don’t stop, I just—oh—o— _oh_ —” 

Her brows scrunched up and her mouth opened and for a second you thought she would yell, but instead the most adorable tiny noise squeaked out. Her thighs clamped around your hand and she shuddered. When she relaxed, she guided your arm to her shoulders and tucked into you to sleep like always.

“That was fun,” She yawned. “We should do that again.”

 

You did do it again. And again. And again. You did it for an entire year, not every night but at least a few every week, and you learned so much about her body. You learned that when you touched her breasts or bottom like she asked, she was wetter when your fingers found their place. She liked when you held her wrist down hard against the mattress as you touched her, her other hand occupied with stroking you just as firmly, and she loved how strong you felt in her grip. One night you dared to search deeper with your fingers, and as they slipped hot inside of her she gasped and moaned, and you couldn’t stand it—you spent what was inside of you against her hip, a pearlescent trail dribbling down her skin until it vanished into your sheets.

Once you knew that fingers would fit there, you couldn’t help but imagine what else would.

“Tell me if it hurts,” You said two nights later. 

Your heart was a trapped hummingbird—Nora threaded her fingers in between yours and nodded, and when you parted her flesh with your own the both of you sighed as if you had been incomplete until now. You were content to stay that way, connected with her as deeply as you could imagine, but Nora asked you to move in and out, so you did. She fought to keep quiet as you went along, even covering her mouth with her own hand, but watching her just made you want to give more. You rutted hard against her, and held her down so she would have to stifle her cries into your neck. When you finished she brought her legs up and wrapped them around your hips, keeping you inside.

“Nora,” You panted. 

“Yes, Ren?”

For the first time in many years, you kissed her, but it wasn’t like you were children again. You were closer than that now, you could sense it.

“You’re very precious to me. You’re…you’re everything.” She grinned at you.

“And you’re precious to me, Ren. You’re my bestest, best friend.”

That phrase struck you. Friends? Were you really just friends? Did many friends do this sort of thing? You didn’t know, and you didn’t care. The only thing you wanted was to kiss her again.

 

 

“I need to speak with you.”

Your father was a man of few words. He cornered you in the study one afternoon, a few weeks after you and Nora joined your bodies together for the first time, and his face looked grave. You put down your book and listened.

“Ren, you’re becoming a young man right in front of me. I feel like your childhood has passed by in the blink of an eye.” He sighed. “I’m sorry we’re having this talk so late. You’ll be turning fourteen in a few months, and I haven’t given you the facts of life.”

“You’re very busy, Father. I understand.” 

He unlocked a drawer at his desk and took out a book you had never seen before. It rested on his lap as he told you about sex, the process of creating a child. The more you heard, the more a high note of panic rang in your head. When your father finally opened the book and showed you the picture, your worst fear was confirmed.

There it was, what you and Nora had been doing in the safe dark of your bed: the silhouettes were drawn with no faces, but you recognized the way their bodies fit together. The male figure squashed the female in a stiff pose; the image seemed so soulless. It felt so cold, clinical, not at all what you felt like when you were with her. How could this picture claim to represent what the two of you did together? How could it even compare? It didn’t know how she felt, or how she made you feel. It lacked sound, taste, touch, the whirlwind of happiness that spun through you both when you were joined. You saw the picture and wanted to burn it in the study’s fireplace. Your father put a hand on your shoulder.

“You see, Ren, making a child is a special thing. You should only do it when you’re older, when you’re married. I know you’ll have urges to do things, but as a man, you have the responsibility of controlling yourself. Having a child before you’re ready is a hard thing.”

“H-How do you avoid having a child before you’re ready?” Your father frowned.

“Ren, I want to be clear. You have a gift, and it’s only for one special person. It’s not for anyone else. It’s for the person you love, the person who will be your wife when you get older, and there’s no need to worry about babies because you’ll be ready then. Do you understand?”

Your stomach felt like a lead weight. You nodded. After your father left, shame began to worm its way into your thoughts, and it made you so angry. Nora was your special person. How could you imagine having sex with some woman you’d never met, and deny yourself from doing it with Nora? She was your best friend, and you had been together for as long as you could remember. Why did age matter? You were both thirteen, you had both wanted to; did it really matter that neither of you could drive? Did it matter that neither of you could see an R-rated movie? She was your best friend. You cared about her so much. Were you wrong? Were you not supposed to care about your friends that way? The more you thought about it, the more conflicted you felt.

“What’s the matter?” She asked that night. She had tried to kiss you, and you turned your head.

“…I don’t think we should do this anymore.”

“Whaaaat?” She drawled, and giggled. She leaned in again, and you pulled away. Her smile faded. She poked you in the ribs. “How come?”

“I—” How could you tell her? How could you insist that you were both too young when it felt so right?

“There are a lot of reasons why we shouldn’t, Nora.”

“Why? We don’t even have to worry about using up all the Kleenexes anymore. When you finish inside me, I—”

“It’s not that,” You murmured. “Well, it is, but…Well, it’s complicated.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“Are you bored with me?” She asked in a small voice.

“What? No, never.” You kissed her forehead. Her face already felt hot. “I could never be bored with you.”

“Then why?”

So though it hurt your heart, you told her about what your father had said, and she listened. She cocked her head to the side.

“So your dad doesn’t want you to have sex right now?” She asked.

“Yes, because it’s special. He said I’m supposed to wait, and after I’m married I can have children with my wife.” She shrugged.

“Well, I guess it’s not a big deal.” You blinked.

“Nora, I don’t want to be with someone else. I want to be with you.”

“Well duh,” She said, rolling her eyes. “I’m in love with you, too. Your Pops just doesn’t want us to have babies so early.”

“I—huh?”

“He wants us to get married first. I don’t blame him, but I don’t think marriage is some cure-all for babies. I bet there are ways to avoid babies until then.”

“Wait—”

“What if babies come when you say you love each other? Isn’t that what always happens in the movies? They say ‘I love you’ and then it fades to black, and they kiss like we do? Maybe a baby only comes after you say ‘I love you.’”

“Nora—”

“So now that we’ve said it, we’ll have to be extra careful. You said your dad has a book? Does it say anything about—”

“Nora!”

“Yes, Ren?”

“You’re in love with me?”

“Yup!” She grinned. “Thought you knew. I mean, we’ve always been together. Not together-together, though. Not like this. Nope, that’s a new thing. New compared to the rest.” She rolled off the bed. “It’s okay, Ren. I can wait. Your dad drives a tough bargain, but I can wait.”

You stopped sleeping together after that night. Nora wouldn’t even kiss you, and it wasn’t until you were both sixteen and at Beacon and had access to the library’s vast knowledge on birth control that you both considered making love to each other again, and even then you had to wait. You had a lot to learn first to make sure you would both be safe.

“We’re not _together_ -together,” Nora would say. 

_Not yet,_ your eyes would promise.

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this story in my head for awhile, and finally sat down and wrote it all in one six-hour sitting. The idea for it came from two places. It's always struck me how strange the energy between Nora and Ren seems to be whenever they talk about being "together-together." I started wondering why that was there. I also remembered a conversation I had with my mother growing up; I asked her what sex was, and she refused to tell me anything about it even though I was fifteen at the time. I learned about it all from the Internet, which is about the worst place you can learn from if you don't know what you should believe and what's bullshit. Anyway, I thought about how a person might learn about it on their own through experimentation, and immediately I thought of these two.
> 
> It's unrevised, but I'm pretty happy with it. Enjoy!


End file.
